This invention relates generally to the field of telephony, and more particularly to an improved test shoe adapted to be placed in engagement with the exposed ends of subscriber pair cables appearing on a telephone connector or protector block.
As is known in the art, to afford protection to office switching and other equipment, it is common practice to bring individual subscriber pair cables into the office for appearance on a main frame having a plurality of connector and protector blocks. The latter are engaged by so called protector modules which complete the tip and ring circuits to the switching equipment, the modules including a variety of protective devices which ground excessive currents caused by the occurrence of lightning strikes, fallen cables and the like. When installation of new subscriber circuits is made, it is convenient to serially test a large number of such circuits using standard procedures by interfacing the test equipment at the point where the protector modules are subsequently connected. With the development of protector modules having test points on an exposed surface thereof, it is desirable that the same test shoe engage either such points or the contacts appearing on the protector block.
It is also known in the art to provide large test shoes for this purpose, capable of simultaneously engaging up to one hundred subscriber pairs, the engagement of each pair requiring terminal interconnection for tip and ring circuits, as well as ground. Engagement is made by the penetration of spring urged projections into corresponding oversized sockets, and once engaged, the shoe is maintained, in some constructions, by the provision of a latching means which contacts a portion of the main frame. Because of the large number of contacts made, considerable frictional force is developed when an attempt is made to remove the shoe after the completion of test procedures, and difficulty in overcoming this frictional force is often encountered. The above described structure is usually bulky, not inexpensive to manufacture, and, because of its size, not always convenient to use.